Tailor Your Sales Proposition and Positioning the Benefits | Professional Selling Skills

What is a sales proposition?

A sales proposition is your presentation of a solution. A solution that potentially solves the problems and needs you have established during the exploratory part of your sales conversation. Your sales proposition may take the form of a presentation, proposal, dialogue or all three. The method you choose to use to communicate your sales proposition will depend on what is most appropriate.

What is meant by positioning the benefits?

Positioning the benefits is all about making a connection or link between what is important to your prospect and what you are able to fulfil. Positioning the benefits is about telling or showing exactly what your solution will do for your prospect. Benefits bring the solution alive and sell the value.

Why is it important?

Tailoring your sales proposition and positioning the benefits is how you ensure that your prospect lives the full potential value of your solution. It is so much better than just running through the generic facts. Your prospect will be interested in their needs, their problems and their solution. They will want to feel special. Tailoring your proposition and using their language to do that is a very powerful way of ensuring that you hit all the right buttons. The greater the fit, the greater the chance you will have of getting a positive reaction.

Your challenge

To tailor your sales proposition and position the benefits effectively you will need to be very clear about what the benefits of your solution are in the first place. Listening and asking the right questions will have been a vital part of the process. Without having the correct information about your prospect’s needs, problems and values it will be impossible to tailor your proposition. You will also need to be flexible and able to communicate what you do for people in different ways. You will not be able to rely on a standard sales pitch. Each presentation you make might be slightly different from the one before.

How to Tailor your Sales Proposition for each Individual Client?

1. Summarise your prospect’s present problems and desired outcomes.

2. Use their language.

3. Make sure that you have their full agreement on their issues.

4. Take each separate need or group of needs and connect with a description of a solution for them. Tell them exactly what you can do to help them to achieve what matters most.

5. Project into the future by relating the solution you are suggesting to the bigger picture.

6. Share relevant examples of how you have helped organisations to solve similar problems and achieve a good result. Make sure that you choose examples that the prospect will relate to.

7. Make your recommendations confidently.

CAN YOU IMPROVE YOUR SALES PROPOSITIONS? - SPECIAL RESPONSE CHECKLIST

1. How do you tend to make your sales propositions?

2. How well do they work?

3. Do you tailor your sales propositions?

4. Are you communicating more about what your prospect will get than what you do?

5. What can you do to improve your sales propositions?

After you have communicated your sales proposition you will want to get to a point when your prospect says ‘Yes I want to do business with you’. If you can reach this point conceptually after a verbal presentation, your final stage will be a proposal and the price. If you have been able to gauge budgets and price expectations during your initial conversations it will make it a lot easier to position the price in your ultimate proposal.

Think benefit and get the business!